Google's mobile-friendly update. How significant is the impact for us?

[isaac663]

Hi guys.

Recently I got an email from Webmaster-tools saying our site is poorly optimised for mobile devices, and that it’s going to heavily affect rankings from April 21st.  I’m worried to say the least.  We literary cannot afford a hit on traffic at the moment

We rank well for niche terms like ‘customised diary’ and ‘personalised diary’.

So question...

Because we rank well for these very specific searches will we still take a hit on rankings after the update?  Won’t our high relevancy for those search terms be enough to keep us high in the results?

Also, do you know if this change is specific to the users device?  E.g) Someone on a mobile device will get mobile-friendly results, whilst users on a laptop will get different results altogether?

I'm just trying to get a sense of how much this update will effect us.  Any isights, suggestion, or thoughts would be greatly appreciated.  Our site.

Thanks in advance.  This community is invaluable to us

Isaac - TOAD Diaries.

[DirkC]

There is a similar thread here: http://moz.com/community/q/what-if-my-site-isn-t-ready-for-mobile-armageddon-by-april-21st

If you have a lot of mobile visitors coming in via Google, I think you may expect that this traffic will disappear (unless your competitors aren't very mobile friendly as well).

Nobody really knows what the impact is going to be, most discussions seem to agree that the impact will only be for mobile searches, but again, it's difficult to predict.

It also seems that it's defined on page - not site level, so you could try to provide mobile versions for your most important landing pages (dedicated or responsive). Your lay-out seems pretty straight forward, so I guess it shouldn't be too difficult to adapt it Remember that it doesn't have to perfect - it just needs to pass the "mobile friendly" test - https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/ - you can always improve later on.

Hope this helps

Dirk

[MattAntonino]

"most discussions seem to agree that the impact will only be for mobile searches"

I agree this is Google's intent. I don't think it'll necessarily be the actual result. If you lose a lot of traffic or your bounce rates go up or your SERP bounce-back rates go up, etc. it could affect desktop search.

I think this update has the potential to affect desktop but as you said, difficult to predict.  Great answer & very helpful.

[DennisSeymour]

Google has stated that it's going to impact a large significant amount of results but it's definitely going to be for mobile only so you should check your traffic sources to see if you get a good chunk of mobile traffic.

Dirk is right so you should look at your pages that have good mobile traffic and push out a temporary solution for that until you get a good mobile end for your website.

Good luck!

[isaac663]

Hi Dirk.  Thank you so much for you're response!  Greatly appreciated!

On what you said....

"It also seems that it's defined on page - not site level, so you could try to provide mobile versions for your most important landing pages (dedicated or responsive)."

Is this to say that if our home page (and other landing pages) were mobile-friendly we may not see any change in (mobile) rankings?  Even if these pages link to poorly optimised pages?

On our site our designer tool is where you buy our product.  This is a very difficult page to make mobile friendly.  So won't google just see that the majority of links are going to this page and penalise accordingly?

Thanks.

Isaac.

[DirkC]

Hi

according to this article http://searchengineland.com/google-mobile-friendly-ranking-factor-runs-real-time-page-page-basis-216100 Google has confirmed that it based on page rather than site level.

From user experience perspective it would be better to have the full site responsive, given the urgency it would focus on landing page.. Your designer tool pages seem not that important in terms of search - you could eventually put them on noindex if you don't want Google to see them, although I don't think this absolutely necessary.

Dirk

[isaac663]

Hi Dirk.  Thank you so much again for your response.

Yes we must get your whole site sorted for our mobile users.  But like you say focusing on the landing pages are essential  Better get cracking!

Thanks again

Isaac.